A gig of quite epic proportions, this was The Cure’s first indoor gig in Scotland in 30 years (following the outdoor one at Bellahouston in 2019) and with one of the largest cult acts in Scotland in tow, this was always going to be a bit special.
Yes, security and other arrangements at the venue are a bit annoying and the whole setup is very corporate but let’s just remember how big The Cure still are, despite no new music in 17 years and counting. The place was at full capacity (14,000 BM thinks, with people travelling from all parts of Scotland and the North of England and some well beyond).
The Twilight Sad started around 7pm and played a committed and emotional 40 minute set consisting of a selection of recent and older songs. With Grant Hutchison back on drums after having to sit out Belfast due to illness they were in blistering form, with singer James imploring the audience (pretty large for a support band and increasing vocal as the set went on) and to an extent himself into bursts of energy.
Starting with a couple of less known track ‘Kill It In The Morning’ and ‘Let/s Get Lost’, then newer track ‘VTr’, the audience responded best probably to oldie ‘That Summer, I Had…’, while their take on the Frightened Rabbit track (always in their setlist now) ‘Keep Yourself Warm’ was bellowed back to them by the crowd. Afterwards James gestured at Grant, before the last blast of ‘(10 Good Reasons For Modern Drugs)’. A great homecoming reaction from the crowd but the tour is not over yet… BM hopes to see TTS back for even bigger shows next year – they have always suited big stages and although the volume as support was maybe not that of the headliners (as is traditional), they certainly killed it again tonight…
The Cure arrived onstage around 8.15 and with a couple of short breaks played right up to the final seconds of the 11pm curfew. With two original members – Robert Smith on guitar/vocals (in many ways as main songwriter he really IS The Cure) and Simon Gallup on bass, of the six onstage, they at first interspersed new tracks (there were five tonight BM thinks) such as ‘Alone’ and ‘A Fragile Thing’ with ‘classics’ such as ‘Pictures of You’ from ‘Disintegration’ and deep album cuts such as ‘A Strange Day’ from ‘Pornography.
Smith’s voice was excellent throughout, with some self-deprecating chat (“I only realised what this (over 20 year old) song was about a few weeks ago…”) and politely did not mention the England football result (although someone must have told him at some point…). Gallup moved around the stage with menace, bequiffed and tattooed, while guitarist Reeves Gabrels (an old Bowie cohort among other things) was bespectacled and presented a more mature image. With excellent contributions from the other three members (drums, keys and keys/guitar) the older songs were given new life, not radically changed but just allowed to breathe and exist in a live context. And yes it was pretty loud.
Altogether they played 28 songs, each one with a different set of visuals ranging from the pastoral to the apocalyptic. You cannot say this band does not give good value and a proper flipping show for the best of part of 60 quid tickets.
The first four-track encore included new track ‘I Never Can Say Goodbye’, followed by a triple whammy of ‘Faith’, an extraordinary and frenzied ‘One Hundred Years’ (probably the highlight of the night for BM) and a menacing but vindicated and ramped up version of ‘A Forest’.
The second, seven track encore simply gave the audience what a lot of them had wanted all along – THE HITS! The ridiculous ‘Lullaby’, the first of the “WTF are my fave goth band doing?” tracks ‘The Walk’, then a closing run of ‘Friday I’m in Love’ (cue mass outbreak of dancing, people of all ages just going mad) ‘Close to Me’, ‘In Between Days’, ‘Just Like Heaven’ and the final ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ as eleven o’clock almost struck.
As BM said, an epic and emotional evening…